


New Year's Sorrows

by Baroness_Blixen



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s07e04 Millennium, F/M, Mostly Fluff, a tiny bit of angst, they talk about diana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 10:44:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17282588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baroness_Blixen/pseuds/Baroness_Blixen
Summary: "Mulder, are you only with me because Diana is dead and won't come back?"





	New Year's Sorrows

The new year has barely opened its eyes when Mulder decides it’s going to be a good one. How could it not be? He turns on his side, as well as he can with his injured shoulder, to look at Scully. Yes, Scully is in his bed, sleeping peacefully. Her hand is under her chin as if she were deep in thought, ready to verbally spar with him even now, even with her eyes closed. He smiles. His shoulder throbs, a small price to pay for having her here. They shared a first kiss, a second and a third. All of them on the sweet side, for now. He scoots closer and holds his breath until he’s sure Scully hasn’t woken up. Their noses almost touching, he closes his eyes again, falling asleep with a smile on his face.

The next time he wakes the room is bathed in grey daylight. Mulder blinks his eyes open, anxious to see Scully, but she’s not in bed anymore. He gets up, briefly forgetting about his shoulder, and winces in pain. Goose bumps appear on his skin; his apartment drafty on this first day in January. Instead of searching for a shirt to wear, he looks for Scully. He finds her in the living room, sitting in his desk chair. It squeaks softly as it swivels left and right. She’s staring out the window, not seeing him there, watching her.

“Hey, good morning,” he says after a moment, the silence too long and his need to talk to her too strong.

“It’s after noon, Mulder.” Her back is turned to him. He should have known. It was too soon, too quick. Just too much. This is Scully. He should have stopped after their first kiss, give her time to process. Or after the second one when she smiled at him, touching his lips; she’d initiated that one. But he didn’t. He had to go for a third kiss, had to ask her to stay. He should have known; he knows Scully, knows she needs time, her space.

“Have you been up long? Are you hungry? I think I might have something we could eat or I’ll get us something from that little bakery around the corner. Scully?” His words tumble out of him, talking his only way to deal with her silence She remains quiet and the desk chair turns the other direction. Mulder goes to kneel in front of her, holding on to the armrests so she can’t flee. They need to talk and they need to do it now. Happy New Year indeed.

“You finally get to look down at me, huh?” He grins at her, but she barely cracks a smile. Her lips are a thin line, holding back. He’s not going to ask, fearing to hear ‘I’m fine’. Mulder wants to be back in the early hours of the morning when sleep clung to him, Scully by his side. It’s only just begun and he’s not ready to let go of it again. Of her.

“If I snored or-”

“Mulder, are you only with me because Diana is dead and won’t come back?” Her eyes are on his and he’s so taken aback that his first instinct is to laugh. The sound that comes out of his mouth is strangled, a gurgle and Scully’s eyebrow shoots up. She’s serious. She’s so serious about what she just said.

Not trusting his words just yet, he touches her head, runs his finger over her temple, taps it lightly before he lets it rest there.

“Did they perform brain surgery on you too?” His smile feels heavy, sad. Hers is a mirror.

“I’m serious.” In these last few months Mulder has come to understand this side of Scully. This strange jealousy that turns her upside down. She doesn’t admit to it, not his Scully, but he sees it. It was irritating at first, then amusing. Now he sees the pain on her face; emotions she - both of them - never dealt with. They might have shared a kiss, ot two, or three, but so much is still left unspoken, unclear. So very, very new.

“It was you I kissed last night, Scully. You I played baseball with. You I declared my love to last year even if you blamed it on the painkillers - yeah, I remember that. It was you, Scully. It is you.”

“You loved her once.”

“I did.” He’s not going to lie to her, not about this. “But it was a long time ago.”

“If she were still here-”

“It would still be you. Look, I know I didn’t handle her reappearance well.” Scully snorts and he knows he deserves it. “I was dazed by her-”

“Looks.”

“By her belief in me and the x-files.”

“I believe in you, Mulder. I might not always agree with your theories, but I believe in you.”

“I know that. But for a brief moment I was swayed by how easy Diana made it for me.” Because Scully didn’t make it easy for him, not in the least. Some days he’s convinced she does it on purpose, only disagrees with him for kicks. Diana would have said all the right things, always. He looks at Scully, sees the fire in her eyes. Today or tomorrow they’ll find something to disagree on. A case, what to eat for lunch, whether Bigfoot exists or not.

“To answer your earlier question, I am hungry.” That’s his Scully. He grins. They will come back to this one day. Diana is still a sore spot, will be for yet another while. He’ll show Scully that there’s only one woman for him and it’s her. Only her.

“Let’s get you some food.” His knees protest as does his shoulder.

“Maybe I should go get breakfast and you stay here.”

“I’m perfectly capable of buying my- you breakfast.” She touches his good arm, lingers.

“There’ll be other mornings for you to buy breakfast,” she slips into her shoes, “and anyway, it’s time for lunch.” With her heels back on she doesn’t need to get on tiptoes to press a soft kiss to his lips. Will he ever get used to kissing her? He hopes not.

“Four,” he mumbles against her warm, soft lips, his eyes closed.

“Mulder, are you keeping count on how often we kiss?”

“Hm, no.” Of course he is. And she knows. Whether he talks about mutated cows or denies counting their kisses, her skeptical look with one eyebrow up, her arms crossed, remains the same.

“I’ll stop once we make it to the triple digits.”

“Shouldn’t take too long.” Number five, six and - he forgets to count and just kisses her back, forever.


End file.
